


Written in Ink

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Community: fan_flashworks, F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-First Time, intimacy is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their first time, Neal needs to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written in Ink

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ink challenge on fan_flashworks. Thanks to mergatrude for read-through.

Neal lets himself out of the Burkes’ house, settles his hat on his head and starts walking. He’ll flag down a taxi soon, but right now, he needs to be properly alone, stretch his legs. The marshals won’t notice so long as he sticks to the route between here and June’s.

He needs to be alone. He just—he just slept with Peter and Elizabeth. He slept with _the FBI_. If Mozzie finds out, he’s never going to hear the end of it. And maybe Moz has a point: it was the FBI that arrested Neal, that has him in the anklet even now. It’s the FBI that has the marshals monitoring his every move. The FBI exploits Neal’s knowledge and skills to catch others like him.

Except all the bad guys they’ve caught so far have been, well, bad. Like, murderous or violent bad. Neal doesn’t have any mixed feelings about their being incarcerated. He’s not in some brotherhood of thieves with them. He wouldn’t have given them the time of day, even before he was forced fed (an old joke, now, but so apt).

He feels brotherhood with Peter, though. More than brotherhood. And he’s been angling for more with Peter and Elizabeth for months, subtly eroding their resistance, meeting their unspoken qualms with silent reassurance, convincing even himself. But it had been a game, a distraction. He never thought he’d succeed.

And now he has. Peter even said—He said a lot of things. Big things. Unexpected declarations spilling out of him in the heat of the moment. And Elizabeth had locked gazes with Neal as she came, sweaty and flushed and gorgeous. In the space of a few hours, Neal’s lost his footing: is this what he wants, to be part of their solid domesticity? Is this his destiny?

There are a thousand adventures waiting for him in the world, so many treasures yet to liberate. Mozzie keeps a continuously updated and heavily annotated list—coded, of course—of their priority targets, to be pursued as soon as the anklet comes off. Surely the black market shines a little less brightly without Neal’s contributions. 

He’s almost on the bridge now, the sky a dusty velvet above, the air warm and close like static. It’s late. There’s almost no traffic. He’s too old for just walking around the city at night to feel illicit, but given his circumstances, it does. 

It was good, he admits. It was hot and sexy and forbidden and safe. Peter had been shaking by the end, his voice rough with need, and that had hooked Neal low in his belly, twisted him up and set him on fire. Elizabeth had kissed him like a promise.

But Neal doesn’t know if he has any promises left in him—after Kate, after four years in prison, dreaming of the future. He’d vowed to do his time, clean the slate and then play smarter. All his other plans are sketched out in pencil, but this is indelible: he’ll never get caught again.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Neal,” calls a slightly breathless voice behind him, and he turns, and it’s Peter, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his hair sticking up. Behind him, down the street a way, the Taurus is parked with its lights off. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” says Neal, wary despite himself. 

But there’s no reproach in Peter’s eyes, no panic. “Changed your mind?”

Neal shakes his head. Earlier, before, Peter had said, _You have to be sure about this._

“It’s okay if you have,” says Peter now, matter-of-fact, almost gentle. “Or if you do. You can stop this any time you want. We’ll work it out.” 

“Peter—”

“I mean it,” said Peter. “You’re never under any obligation—”

“I love you.” Mostly he says it to shut off Peter’s flow of terms and conditions fine print, but it’s true, too. It takes his breath away how true it is. The noise in his head goes quiet. Mozzie will just have to cope.

Peter doesn’t come closer, just looks at him, eyebrows raised. Right. Neal escaped Peter’s house, his and Elizabeth’s bed, without so much as a word.

“I wasn’t—” _running_. Neal swallows the lie, and tells the truth instead. “It kind of blindsided me.”

Peter visibly relaxes. The corner of his mouth twitches. “I know that feeling.”

Neal breaths a laugh. “We’re good?”

“Always.” But Peter’s still holding back.

It’s Neal who bridges the space between them, takes off his hat, steps in and leans against Peter. Neal whose skin burns with how much he wants—not only sex, but to be together, to possess. “Take me home.” 

“Your place or mine?” says Peter, dry as dust, hugging him back. It’s a loose hug, verging on polite, but there’s a tell-tale hitch in his voice.

Neal kisses him, trying to break through Peter’s restraint, and it partially works. Peter groans and presses his forehead to Neal’s. His arms tighten. “Yours,” says Neal. “Please. Elizabeth will be—”

“She’s in the car.” Peter jerks his head toward the Taurus, and Neal gets a swoop of guilt, but he hides it and grins.

“Freaked you guys out, huh?”

“There was some concern,” Peter allows. “I’m out on a limb here.”

“I know.” Neal nudges against him and starts walking toward the car.

Peter follows. “And so are you, we get that,” he says, revealing a depth of understanding that blows away the last of Neal’s defenses and erases, in a second, a thousand penciled-in crimes. “But if we all want this, we can make it work.”

“I want it,” says Neal, sure now and confident. Making a promise. Writing it in ink. 

 

END


End file.
